


SPN Commentary 2014

by welkinalauda (iiii)



Series: Salvaged from Tumblr [3]
Category: Tumblr - Fandom, supernatural meta - Fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-09-16 07:08:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16949325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iiii/pseuds/welkinalauda





	SPN Commentary 2014

* * *

 [1/15/14](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/73491060495/910-road-trip) [#spn 9x10 Road Trip](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9x10-Road-Trip)

That bit about happiness coming from finding your woobie and clinging to it at all costs?  reminded me of Meg’s line about picking a cause and ordering your life around it.  Except, Meg’s is the more accurate advice.  A cause of one’s own does indeed provide a sense of purpose.  But deciding that one thing (say, Sam with a pulse) matters, and being willing to toss anyone (Castiel) and anything (closing the gates of Hell, Sam’s own wishes/autonomy/consent) aside for that One Very Important Thing does not, in fact, make for lasting happiness.  We heard an angel, who doesn’t have the human experience to know what crap he’s spouting, mouth the philosophy Dean has been living by for most of his life - and then Sam’s body killed the body that said it.

* * *

 [1/16/14](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/73589592015/messier51-littlehollyleaf-deathbycoldopen) [spn 9x10 Road Trip](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9x10-Road-Trip)

My take was that Abner was espousing the life philosophy that *Dean’s* been living by for years now, namely, pick the one important thing and cling to it at all costs and that’ll make you happy.  In Dean’s case, the one important thing is Sam’s pulse.  To keep that secure, Dean has at one time or another tossed aside pretty much everyone else he’s ever cared about, his own life and soul, any integrity and principles he might once have had, Sam’s agency, and the opportunity to close the gates of Hell forever.

And, Abner’s only been human for a few months now, living a stolen life as the miraculous reformation of an abusive man.  He’s an infant playing White Knight for a grateful audience.  He doesn’t have the human experience to know the ramifications of what he’s saying, how that kind of monomania can end up with our hero alone in a cave muttering over his precious… and then losing his precious anyway.

Later, when Castiel found out who was inhabiting Sam, and he started ranting about how Gadreel ruined everything?  I was reminded of the times when someone’s said Sam started the apocalypse.  It’s not true, really, for either; Lucifer was fundamentally the one at fault both times, and neither Gadreel nor Sam understood what the consequences would be beforehand.  

To sum up, Gadreel = Sam, Abner = Dean, Dean lately = Gollum, and at the end of the episode Dean’s precious walked off in another hobbit’s pocket.

* * *

 [2/2/14](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/75385705675/what-does-it-mean-to-close-the-gates-of-heaven-and)

Where are John and Mary Winchester’s souls these days?  They’re not in Heaven - Ash looked and didn’t find them.  (That wasn’t Mary’s soul in DSotM, after all; that was an image of her as part of the scenery in Dean’s Heaven.)  They’re not ghosting it up on earth - we saw Mary burn up in Home and John fade away in AHBL2.  They’re not in Hell - well, probably not.  I wouldn’t put anything past the current writer’s room.  But canon to date (as I read it) suggests it’s unlikely they’re in Hell.  

So where are they?  I think Hades, or something along those lines.  No great punishment, no great reward.  Just a vast holding tank where the dead hang out and are dead, forever.    

So, my guess is that if Heaven and Hell are obsoleted, the reapers will go back to conducting souls to the Underworld, as they did before all that Christian mythology set up shop.

* * *

 [2/2/14](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/75402224531/what-does-it-mean-to-close-the-gates-of-heaven-and)

My headcanon is that, just as humans who reject their own humanity go not to Heaven, but to Hell, so do monsters who reject their own monstrosity go not to Purgatory, but to Limbo.  Seemed like a workable way to explain why Dean didn’t run into Lenore in Purgatory.

* * *

 [3/2/14](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/78355986673/garrulus-bangingpatchouli-vennstiel-sam)

I refuse to believe that they didn’t read the books.  Becky’s revelation about the Colt in _The Real Ghostbusters_ told them that there was stuff - important stuff - in the books that they didn’t already know.  The end of the world was looming at them.  I refuse to believe that they didn’t make themselves read all the way through all the books to scrape out all the information they could get.  They’d go bully Chuck out of the unpublished manuscripts, too.  

Sam knows, and has known since sometime in the spring of 2010.

* * *

 [4/5/14](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/81796298829/phantomrose96-i-wanna-talk-about-ben-for-a)

How would Lisa track down a one-time fling?  That question assumes facts not in evidence, and misrepresents what the script actually told us.  The line is, “There was this guy – some bar back in a biker joint.”  Which is to say,  **she knew where he worked**.  (The bar back is the guy who hauls up the fresh kegs from the basement and brings out clean glassware from the dishwasher, and, given what’s being implied about the classiness of the place where he was working, probably washed the glassware himself.)  It strikes me as eminently plausible that Lisa had sex with this bar back guy - and we’ve got no information on whether it was one quickie out back during his break, or if he was crashing at her place, or what - she got knocked up, they had a test done which confirmed his paternity, and sometime in the next months or years dude got tired of dealing with kid shit and hit the road.  There is nothing fundamentally unlikely there.  Which doesn’t make it true, of course, but it’s a colorable story, not an obvious falsehood.

(Also, please note, that five lines after she tells him about the bar back and the blood test, Lisa tells Dean he’s welcome to stay.  So if she fabricated an alternate bio-dad for Ben and called herself a slut in an effort to get Dean to leave, she sure changed her mind quick.)

The main reason I don’t think Ben is Dean’s bio-son has nothing to do with our differing reads of Lisa’s motivations.  It’s that Dean has a heritable condition: he is the vessel of the Archangel Michael.  Any child of his is a possible vessel.  If Ben were of Dean’s blood, the angels should have been on that kid like white on rice.  And… nothing.  

If at some point Nicholas Elia shows up inhabited by a fallen angel, I will concede that all y'all were right all along.  But until then?  Family don’t end with blood. 

[#why is it better that she be a liar than a slut?](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/why-is-it-better-that-she-be-a-liar-than-a-slut%3F) [#why is so important that Dean's family end with blood?](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/why-is-so-important-that-Dean%27s-family-end-with-blood%3F)

* * *

 [4/28/14](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/84197306564/sherlockbringthejam-vhanstiel-klynneb)

Dean Winchester = Rincewind.

Discuss.

[#dean winchester](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/dean-winchester) [#Rincewind](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/Rincewind) [#death](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/death) [#spn](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/spn) [#discworld](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/discworld) [#what do you think Dean's lifetimer looks like?](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/what-do-you-think-Dean%27s-lifetimer-looks-like%3F)

* * *

 [5/15/14](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/85885585464/laoih-supernatural-9x23-extended-promo-do-you)

And I went up there, I said, “Shrink, I want to kill. I mean, I wanna, I wanna kill. Kill. I wanna, I wanna see, I wanna see blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth. Eat dead burnt bodies. I mean kill, Kill, KILL, KILL.” And I started jumping up and down yelling, “KILL, KILL,” and he started jumping up and down with me and we was both jumping up and down yelling, “KILL, KILL.” And the sergeant came over, pinned a medal on me, sent me down the hall, said, “You’re our boy.”  
  
Didn’t feel too good about it.

– Arlo Guthrie, “Alice’s Restaurant”

[#SPN](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/SPN) [#Arlo Guthrie](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/Arlo-Guthrie) [#he said what was you arrested for kid](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/he-said-what-was-you-arrested-for-kid) [#and dean said grave desecration](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/and-dean-said-grave-desecration) [#and they all moved away from him on the bench](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/and-they-all-moved-away-from-him-on-the-bench)

* * *

 [5/20/14](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/86384906419/betting-pool-on-how-long-dean-will-remain-a-demon)

with any luck Dean will rise from that bed and smite Crowley on the spot - the keeper of that blade has not traditionally been a biddable zombie to be ordered about by any jumped-up tailor, but rather a murderous villain who answered only to a fallen angel.  And much as like Mark Sheppard, I’m tired of Crowley recapitulating Spike, you know?  

I hope Dean stays demonic until at least past the winter break.  He’d make a good Big Bad.

[#SPN Meta](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/SPN-Meta) [#Big Bad Dean](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/Big-Bad-Dean)

* * *

 [5/21/14](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/86390750639/kripke-chuck-carver-metatron)   **Kripke : Chuck :: Carver : Metatron**

First postulate: Metatron has read all the stories ever told.  He knows narrative and plot devices.  He’s not completely stupid.   **Metatron is telling the story he means to tell.**

He’s been a bit vague about spelling out the plot of that story in the dialogue so far.  But he has said it’s full of love and heartbreak and… love. 

Metatron’s part hasn’t had much to do with love and heartbreak; so far he’s been the motivating force of a subplot about a pretender seeking power.  There’s no love in his subplot, no heart to break.  The main story is about someone else.

Metatron seduced, used, and alienated Gadreel… and Gadreel thereby experience Charater Development, going from puling about how unfair it was that he’d been convicted of the crimes he’d committed, to making a selfless sacrifice that will bring him the precise redemption - an improved reputation - that he’d spent his previous incarceration longing for in vain. 

Castiel chose Dean over an army of loyal followers, thus making it explicit to Dean that Castiel would, in fact, choose Dean over an army of loyal followers.  (We, the audience, have been told that; I’m not sure that Dean and Castiel have seen it spelled out stark and neat like that before.)  The  **only** reason Castiel was in a position to make that choice?  Metatron maneuvered Castiel into collecting an army of loyal followers.  

Metatron arranged for the creation of the angelic PA.  He’s the one who had the apparatus made after the pattern of an old-fashioned radio mike, so that it would pick up and broadcast all the voices in the room.  He’s the one who had the microphone set up a few feet from the MacGuffin.  And he’s… surprised?  that the revolver he set on the mantlepiece in the first act went off in the third act?  Yeah, no.

I’m going to go out on a limb, and assume that Metatron knows what Crowley’s been up to, and let him get up to it.  Maybe even set him up to get up to it.  In any case, Dean’s been set up to be the big bad.  To have Sam tell him, “If I didn’t know you, I would want to hunt you.”  Dean’s shame and self-loathing spiral will hit extreme bottom.  And Castiel is being set up to rescue him from Hell, again.  And this time, I do believe that Dean will be redeemed of his sins by the love of a good angel.

[#spn meta](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-meta) [#metatron](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/metatron) [#playing god is in the details](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/playing-god-is-in-the-details)

* * *

[5/22/14](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/86575722764/did-you-notice-him-holding-the-blade-that-killed)

Reminds me of the bit in The Gift after Buffy’s beaten Glory and Ben’s lying there, marveling that Buffy let him live, and Giles says, “She’s a hero, you see.  She’s not like us.”  And Giles reaches down and smothers him.

Castiel’s a hero, you see.  

[#spn meta](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-meta) [#supernatural 9x23](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/supernatural-9x23) [#btvs 5x22](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/btvs-5x22) [#will no one rid me of this turbulent angel](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/will-no-one-rid-me-of-this-turbulent-angel)

* * *

 [6/4/14](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/87869646159/the-grand-canyon-revisited)  **The Grand Canyon, (re)Visited**

 “Yeah, you know, all this driving back and forth across country, you know I’ve never been to the Grand Canyon?” 2.09 Croatoan

“’Let’s go hunt the Morton house,’ you said, ‘it’s our Grand Canyon.’”  3.13 Ghostfacers

“Road trip. Grand Canyon, Star Trek Experience. Bunny Ranch.” 4.02 Are You There, God? It’s Me, Dean Winchester

And then, 8.21, The Great Escapist:

> SAM: Hey, you remember when uh… when Dad took us to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, on that pack-mule ride?
> 
> DEAN: The what?
> 
> SAM: And your, uh… your mule kept farting, just— l-letting go, like, gale force?
> 
> DEAN: Dude, you were like, four years old. I barely remember that.

So, my first reaction to that scene was 'in-verse au,’ and my second was, 'everything after the graveyard in Swan Song is a dream of Sam’s, and the last sequence of the series finale will be Sam waking up in the panic room and going upstairs to find Bobby in the shower.’  I’m still hoping for that one, actually.

My current thinking, though, is that Metatron re-arranged their memories.  I don’t know if he started messing with their heads when they walked into the Two Rivers Hotel, or if it started before, but I do believe he messed with their heads.  I believe he did it because the characters of Sam and Dean, as they then stood, would not have properly played their parts in the story Metatron was writing.  (They have a history of refusing to play their parts, after all.)  So he re-wrote them.  

Anything that has seemed out of character since 8.21 is thus Metatron’s fault.

[#spn meta](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-meta) [#8.21 The Great Escapist](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/8.21-The-Great-Escapist) [#metatron](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/metatron)

* * *

[6/4/14](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/87874510939/the-popular-theory-seems-to-be-that-metatron-is)

The popular theory seems to be that Metatron is too dumb to pour piss out of a boot with instructions printed on the heel.  I don’t like that theory for several reasons.  

\- The story’s not over.  Saying ‘he’s lost everything through his own incompetence’ feels like coming in half-way through a game of pool and deciding who’s won based on the balls sunk so far.  The “loser” still has time to run the table. 

\- Writing off everything he’s done as so much failed pointless foolishness strikes me as a much duller interpretation than believing that Metatron is Heaven’s answer to Irene Adler.  It seems to me far more entertaining to constellate the last two seasons into one big ball of 'he meant it that way’ and try to black-box up his motive from the glimpses we’ve seen of the pattern.

\- Metatron promised Gadreel the opportunity to redeem his reputation, and, in betraying Metatron, Gadreel got exactly that.  I can’t believe that was an accident.

\-  The one “insider” fact I know about Curtis Armstrong is that he was only one that everyone on the set of Moonlighting was still talking to as the series staggered to its end.  And my first impression of him was as Miles in Risky Business, telling Joel that sometimes you gotta say 'what the fuck,’ and when Joel’s too chickenshit, Miles does it for him.  He was kind of schlubby even then, but he could afford to be - dude was going to Harvard.  And thanks to Miles’s irresponsible meddling, Joel got in to Princeton.  I just can’t look at that face and see “mean and stupid.”  

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geDCtBQeN8c&feature=kp](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DgeDCtBQeN8c%26feature%3Dkp&t=YjYzMTlmM2Y2NjM5YzljYmI0YTI3YjBlYWZiMzA4NDcyNDA4MGM1MSxXMW5ya3pwcg%3D%3D&b=t%3A0uBFBznWrCGtBXYYAWqPPA&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwelkinalauda.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F87874510939%2Fthe-popular-theory-seems-to-be-that-metatron-is&m=1)

[#spn meta](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-meta) [#metatron](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/metatron) [#Curtis Armstrong](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/Curtis-Armstrong)

* * *

[7/4/14](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/90738070454/s-cornelius-since-writing-this-post-ive-been)

I haven’t got a fully developed thesis here, but - 

The Impala is their father’s house.  

It is the custom in the US these days for young adults to leave their parents’ house and live apart from family for a time.  Moving out, even if only temporarily, is our common signifier of adulthood.  

Sam left home.  He ended up moving back in, but he at least took a shot at an independent adulthood.  

Dean never left his father’s house.  He never tried to, or showed any inclination toward doing so.  Instead, John abandoned the family home to Dean and moved into a new place (truck) of his own.

Growing up in the car wasn’t  _unstable_  so much as  _disconnected_.  John kept his home in motion, and thus prevented his children from forming strong connections to any community larger than their nuclear family.  (And what fraction of the hunting community John  _was_  willing to let his sons connect to were slaughtered in 1x21, while the people he played keep-away with were spared.  I hate when the script validates John’s neglectful/abusive behaviors.)

The bunker, as messier51 notes, is a community place.  It’s specifically the hall of their grandfather’s community.  It’s a place where the boys always would have been welcome.  But for evil happenstance, it’s a place where they always would have  _been_.  It is now theirs, all theirs, and it has room for any friends and colleagues they choose to invite in.  It is wired to be a nerve center.  Where the Impala was made for keeping family in and leaving outsiders behind, the bunker was made for community/ communication/ connection.   

And!  The bunker has a space for the Impala, alongside dozens of other cars.  (In their grandfather’s secret society’s garage are many mansions.)  The bunker is a place where the boys can live in a community without having to reject/ abandon their father or their childhood.

* * *

 [7/29/14](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/93272112824/lets-talk-about-the-real-reason-crowleys-eyes)

I wonder if there’s a distinction between demons who formally sold their souls and those who went to hell for just being horrible people.  Do the dealmakers tend to end up red-eyed at crossroads, while the horrible people gravitate toward the torture side of things?  Do the two groups sneer at each other when they pass in the halls?  

And can a person get to Hell for renouncing God in the SPNverse, do you think?  A decent enough sort of person, mostly harmless, who never was *for* Lucifer, or made any kind of deal, but who made a point of explicitly rejecting God and all his works?  What kind of demon would that person become?

[#spn meta](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-meta) [#demon eyes](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/demon-eyes) [#social distinction in hell](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/social-distinction-in-hell)

* * *

 [9/19/14](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/97874626679/larinah-something-ive-noticed-while-rewatching)

IIRC, the one time train tracks have been part of the story was Colt’s giant devil’s trap.  Last we saw was a section of line getting pried up by escaping evils.  I don’t remember anyone mentioning anyone trying to fix it.

Thing about trains is, in the US at least, they’re verging on obsolete.  Ground freight’s mostly moved to trucks.  People who want to get from Point A to Point B quickly and economically tend to fly.  There’s only one profitable passenger rail line left, the Northeast Corridor, and congress keeps trying to kill it.  We may romanticize the trains, but we don’t actually *use* the trains, except occasionally, as a way to shoehorn some quaint into a vacation.  (The last time I took Amtrak cross-country, from NJ to CA, we were a full day late at the AZ/CA line, and a day and a half late at my actual destination.  It’s gorgeous, taking the train.  But not reliable.)

Others have said elsewhere that the recurring themes they see in seasons 8/9 are about how Castiel keeps trying to be a good angel, and Dean keeps trying to be  ~~Sam’s mother~~  a good son, and they keep trying to do those things by using methods that worked before in other circumstances, but in the here-and-now of seasons 8/9 yield suboptimal results.  

So that may be what all the empty rail lines are about - trains used to be the best possible way to get where you were going, but not any more.  Now those rail lines are saying, ‘this worked before but it’s not working now.  If you wish to reach your goals, you should find another way.’  Like, I don’t know, Cas learns to drive and Dean learns to fly.  

[#spn meta](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-meta) [#ghost trains](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/ghost-trains)

* * *

[9/26/14](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/98522793764/littlehollyleaf-larinah-a-little-follow-up)

 I think this hooks back in neatly with larinah’s point about the empty rail symbolism in season 8 - the cowboy way got crowded out by the railroads, which gave way to the highways, and later the jetways.

cf. Schoolhouse Rock’s “Elbow Room”  [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfoQBTPY7gk](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DFfoQBTPY7gk&t=NjIxM2Q3NmY1N2QyMGFkZjA4ZTM0ZTViN2VlMGU5YjIxMmVkYjEzZixjbmhXaEo0Sw%3D%3D&b=t%3A0uBFBznWrCGtBXYYAWqPPA&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwelkinalauda.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F98522793764%2Flittlehollyleaf-larinah-a-little-follow-up&m=1)

[#spn meta](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-meta) [#elbow room](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/elbow-room) [#this train's got the disappearing rainlroad blues](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/this-train%27s-got-the-disappearing-rainlroad-blues)

* * *

 [9/29/14](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/98734088624/deathbycoldopen-you-know-whats-truly)

Dean was the avatar for virtuous humanity all the way back to the beginning, though.  Good son, good soldier, working class hero, maker of clever devices, etc., etc., and eventually the righteous man who sacrifices himself for his brother.  And all through the early seasons, while all around him are beset and taken by demons and angels and whatnot, Dean stays unpossessed, independent, alone in his own head.  Pure human.  (Until 6x16, anyway.  I seriously started cussing at the screen when they broke the streak with a goddamn Khan worm.)

[#spn meta](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-meta) [#Shoulda named him Andrew](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/Shoulda-named-him-Andrew)

* * *

 [10/6/14](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/99325337724/larinah-yaelstiel-quarksmash-spn10) [gifset of Sam guessing right]

Sometimes Sam pulls shit like that - reciting the verse backwards, driving the racist truck into what used to be hallowed ground, that kind of thing,  _and it works_  - and it’s like watching Jim Rockford and Lance White.  

 

 

> _[Jim Rockford](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.imdb.com%2Fname%2Fnm0001258%2F&t=ZGMzMTFiODZjNzk2ZmUyODBlZmEzMzRiYTA5YzA5ZWUzY2ZmMWNiMSxTV1gycTR2bA%3D%3D&b=t%3A0uBFBznWrCGtBXYYAWqPPA&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwelkinalauda.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F99325337724%2Flarinah-yaelstiel-quarksmash-spn10&m=1)_ : A state senator and a bus driver? What’s the connection?   
>  _[Lance White](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.imdb.com%2Fname%2Fnm0000633%2F&t=OGE5ZWE4MDRiNDMxMjI1ZDFkNjRjZTE2NWMyMjhiZjdjZmQzMjliNixTV1gycTR2bA%3D%3D&b=t%3A0uBFBznWrCGtBXYYAWqPPA&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwelkinalauda.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F99325337724%2Flarinah-yaelstiel-quarksmash-spn10&m=1)_ : Some things you just have to accept. You know, this is just a hunch, Jim, but I think the bus driver had something on the senator. Maybe the senator was having an affair with the bus driver’s wife?   
>  _[Jim Rockford](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.imdb.com%2Fname%2Fnm0001258%2F&t=ZGMzMTFiODZjNzk2ZmUyODBlZmEzMzRiYTA5YzA5ZWUzY2ZmMWNiMSxTV1gycTR2bA%3D%3D&b=t%3A0uBFBznWrCGtBXYYAWqPPA&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwelkinalauda.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F99325337724%2Flarinah-yaelstiel-quarksmash-spn10&m=1)_ : And just where did that come from?   
>  _[Lance White](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.imdb.com%2Fname%2Fnm0000633%2F&t=OGE5ZWE4MDRiNDMxMjI1ZDFkNjRjZTE2NWMyMjhiZjdjZmQzMjliNixTV1gycTR2bA%3D%3D&b=t%3A0uBFBznWrCGtBXYYAWqPPA&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwelkinalauda.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F99325337724%2Flarinah-yaelstiel-quarksmash-spn10&m=1)_ : Hunches don’t come from any place, Jim, they’re just hunches. That’s how we solve our cases.  **We get hunches, they turn out to be right, and the case gets solved.**  Gee, I don’t know how you survive as a private investigator, Jim. You don’t seem to know any of this stuff. 
> 
> – Nice Guys Finish Dead, The Rockford Files ep 6x7

Except in an AU where Jim thinks it’s cute rather than incredibly fucking annoying.

* * *

[ 10/8/14](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/99470634984/messier666-spn-ladies-ann-marie-how-much)

Jo _anna_  Beth -  _Ann_   **Marie**  -  **Mary**

Ann means “grace;” Mary means “bitter.”

Another waitress with long blonde hair.  (Last we saw of Mary, she was covering a diner counter as the Mother of Monsters, right?)  'Cept this one is a civilian - she doesn’t know that Dean & Crowley & the minions are undead evil.  Far as she knows, they’re just standard issue assholes cluttering up her bar.  

This one Dean sleeps with.  Embracing his mommy issues?

[#Ann Marie](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/Ann-Marie) [#Sister Golden Hair Surprise](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/Sister-Golden-Hair-Surprise) [#spn 10x01 Black](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10x01-Black) [#The Name Game](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/The-Name-Game)

* * *

**[10/8/14](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/99492295019/who-else-did-i-miss) Who else did I miss?**

Last night I was all,  **Joanna Beth** / **Ann Marie** / **Mary** , I am so clever to spot the combining of these recurring names!

And this morning I realized I missed a bunch.

**Hannah**  is derived from the same Hebrew root as  **Ann**.

And of, course, so is  **Anna**.

**Lisa**  was a diminutive for  **Elizabeth**  before it started getting used as a name in its own right, kinda like  **Beth**.

**Joanna**  might be a portmateau of  **Joe**  and  **Anna** , or it might derive from  **Johanna** , a feminine version of  **John**.

St.  **Anne**  was the mother of the Virgin  **Mary** , and St.  **Elizabeth**  was the mother of  **John**  the Baptist.

**Hannah**  was the mother of the prophet  **Samuel**.

 [#spn meta](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-meta)[#recurring names](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/recurring-names)[#betting I missed some](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/betting-I-missed-some)

* * *

[10/9/14](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/99576090784/isnt-hannah-ironically-following-naomi-and)

It is bizarre to me that Hannah is going on about compelling all angels to the will of Heaven without anyone ever making explicit what Heaven’s will is, exactly, and, in the absence of God and the archangels, who has the authority to articulate that will.  

I mean, are we supposed to be conceiving of Heaven as a Borg-like collective of angelic consciousness?  If so, is there a mother Borg in there somewhere?  (And if so, who would that be?)  

Is the will of Heaven meant to be collective voice of Angel Radio?  In that case they wouldn’t have military-style commanders, so much as idea-generators and bellwethers who set trends… which could end up utterly terrifying very fast.  

I don’t understand whose will Hannah believes herself to be enforcing.

eta: Or maybe “Heaven” isn’t just landscape, but is instead a sentient consciousness all its own.  Like HAL. 

[#Hannah](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/Hannah) [#Angel Radio](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/Angel-Radio) [#Angels=Borg](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/Angels%3DBorg) [#Meet the new boss](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/Meet-the-new-boss) [#HAL](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/HAL) [#spn 10x01 Black](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10x01-Black)

* * *

[10/19/14](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/100448238209/larinah-yaelstiel-deathswaywardson)

Sam’s used Lemmy Kilmister before - that was the name the Leviathans flagged him on in _The Girl Next Door_.

And, can I say, between using Lemmy’s name (again), the lack of partner, that haircut, and the ancient red pickup, Sam made just about the least convincing FBI agent  _ever_.  Good thing the script is on his side.

In case someone already said that, I will value-add by linking to Motorhead playing “R.A.M.O.N.E.S.”:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyKlvVPpxo8](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DMyKlvVPpxo8&t=MjNmNWMxNzJmYWRmOGUxZjYzMjdiNTdjMDAwNmQ4M2U0OGUzYmFlZixBOEE2VnhIcQ%3D%3D&b=t%3A0uBFBznWrCGtBXYYAWqPPA&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwelkinalauda.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F100448238209%2Flarinah-yaelstiel-deathswaywardson&m=1)

[#spn meta](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-meta) [#spn s10xe2](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s10xe2) [#spn s7xe3](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s7xe3) [#Lemmy deserves better than this](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/Lemmy-deserves-better-than-this)

* * *

 [10/19/14](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/100481989674/crowley-knows-about-cain-and-colette)

Pulled out just this one bit, because I saw it and went, “omg, Lisa.”

Let me back up a couple steps.  There’s this big long essay, full of citations and feminist theory, I keep meaning to write about how  **to Dean, Lisa is hope**.  

Short version: Dean pulled into Lisa’s driveway in 2007 expecting that nothing would have changed about her except her address.  He assumed she’d still be a party girl, still up for a dirty weekend with some random hot drifter.  Which is odd, because most people change a lot in eight years, especially in their twenties.  The twenties is when young Americans morph from the kids they were into the adults they’re going to be.  But… not so odd, really, because  _Dean_ hadn’t materially changed in that time.  Still driving Dad’s car, still wearing Dad’s jacket, still doing Dad’s job.  And the people Dean at that point knew on an ongoing basis, the hunters who John could stand and could stand John, they might die or flee the life, but as far as we know, they didn’t do any character growth or maturing where Dean could see them.  (Sam’s different, but Sam’s an exception to everything as far as Dean’s concerned.)

So Dean shows up at Lisa’s to find she’s not interested in another go-round, and he’s not so much disappointed as utterly bewildered.  Lisa had transformed herself from booty call (five-star, gold-plated… but still, booty call) to soccer mom (exactly like Dean no doubt imagines Mary would have been).  Dean is just gobsmacked, because this is the first intimation he’d had that a person  _can_ change herself for the better.  And here before him is a demonstration that such a change is sustainable, workable, a real non-pipe dream possibility.  At first she tried to send him packing.  And then - then!  After Dean’s given Lisa the speech, fought the monsters, brought her kid home safe - only  _then_  does she ask him to stay.  Not like Cassie - he told Cassie the truth and she dumped him with alacrity, then used him again later, and sent him away again because she didn’t want the real him.  Lisa, contrariwise, hadn’t wanted Dean’s semi-fake persona.  Once she knew he was in there, Lisa wanted  _actual_  Dean to stay.  

So, to Dean, Lisa represents a) the practical possibility of life as something other than Daddy’s blunt little instrument, and b) an actual live person who knows who he is and wants him around because of (not in spite of) who he is.  It didn’t work out for them long term, but still.   **Lisa is hope**.

**

Notice, though, the event that changed Lisa’s mind.  I think the way Our Black-Eyed Boy remembers it, once upon a time, a violent rescue made a good woman want to keep him.  So he’s “rescuing” other women.  It worked once; maybe he’ll stumble into the same result… and he gets pissy when it doesn’t work out that way.

[#spn meta](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-meta) [#s10xe1](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/s10xe1) [#s3xe2](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/s3xe2) [#Black](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/Black) [#The Kids Are Alright](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/The-Kids-Are-Alright) [#Demon Dean](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/Demon-Dean) [#Lisa Braeden](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/Lisa-Braeden) [#grasp and reach for a leg of hope](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/grasp-and-reach-for-a-leg-of-hope) [#still white knighting even with black eyes](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/still-white-knighting-even-with-black-eyes)

* * *

[10/21/14](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/100647084774/underpowered-angel)  **Underpowered Angel**

I thought Hannah was an angel.  

I thought angels could teleport themselves and their friends and their friends’ cars anywhere, immediately.

I thought angels had perfect geolocation (and thus no need of maps).

And Castiel was in such a burning hurry to get to Dean’s side.

SO WHY THE FUCK WERE THEY DRIVING AND HOW THE HELL DID THEY END UP LOST?

[#wtf](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/wtf) [#I guess what's important is that female genitalia makes the person inside ineffectual](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/I-guess-what%27s-important-is-that-female-genitalia-makes-the-person-inside-ineffectual) [#even when the person inside is a multidimensional wavelength of celestial intent](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/even-when-the-person-inside-is-a-multidimensional-wavelength-of-celestial-intent)

* * *

[10/22/14](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/100673814059/underpowered-angel)  **Underpowered Angel** [friends point out the angels' wings are gone; speculation ensues]

My reactions to the idea of her getting them lost on purpose were, in order,

  * oh, good, agency and competence for Hannah!
  * but Castiel would know that she was lying, I mean, I may have lost track of what angels are and aren’t capable of post-fall but *Castiel* certainly knows
  * if she was deliberately lying in an attempt to thwart Castiel and redirect him to her quest, well, she’s better at this human stuff than she’s letting on.  
  * Or is that human?  Zachariah sure told a string of whoppers with a straight face.
  * funny how “demons lie,” when pretty much every statement a demon makes will be true (or irrelevant) in the logic-puzzle sense of “true.”  They phrase false ideas not as statements but as hypotheticals, conditionals, or interrogatives (and thus not lies), then blend those up with true stuff, suggestion and misdirection, and let the mark con himself… but angels just plain lie.



But I digress.

If Hannah was lying and getting them lost on purpose, the risk is that he’ll get sick of her bullshit and walk away.  And, given how high a value she places on his presence, I wonder if she’d run that risk.  I can see arguments both ways.

[#lies lies lies yeah](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/lies-lies-lies-yeah)

* * *

[10/24/14](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/100838928659/larinah-allykat49-larinah-allykat49)

I think the boys made a conscious decision years back that they’ll prioritize the mission over the collateral damage, and drown the guilt in booze later.  Their personal body count just in possessed people is astronomical.  

Not to mention that the last time they put the mission on hold to rescue some innocents, it turned out that what actually happened was they’d gotten conned into moving an especially virulent monster outside the quarantine zone, and Crowley cleaned up that mess for them.  _Mommie Dearest_ was the last time, right?

[#spn meta](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-meta) [#spn 6x19 Mommie Dearest](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6x19-Mommie-Dearest) [#spn 10x03 Soul Survivor](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10x03-Soul-Survivor) [#spn 6.19](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6.19) [#spn 10.3](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.3) [#lesson learned](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/lesson-learned) [#kill them all god will find his own](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/kill-them-all-god-will-find-his-own)

* * *

 [10/24/14](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/100886150889/messier666-while-last-seasons-attempt-at-an)

I think I’d watch  _The Continuing Adventures of Krissy, Josephine, and Fungible White Boy_.  The one they had was ok, I guess, but a hotter fungible white boy would not go amiss.  Or perhaps a regular supply of fridgeable white boys?  I’m flexible.

I’d pretty definitely watch  _Law Officers in the Know_ , with rotating ensembles led by Sheriff Mills, Sheriff Hanscum, Sheriff Hudak, Detective Ballard, plus whoever I’m not thinking of right now and/or someone the writers make up because they have an awsome story idea that they can’t make work in an existing setting, and also to make a change from all the nice white ladies.    

I know I’d watch  _Charlie and Dorothy Commute from Oz_.  They’re fun people.

I might even watch  _We Wish We Were Writing for Some Other Franchise_ , exec produced by Buckleming, if they’d either a) commit to writing one internally consistent ‘verse or b) cop to their inability to write an internally consistent 'verse and lampshade the inconsistencies as part of the world-building, rather than making us do a whole lot of heavy lifting to suspend even a little disbelief.

But shoehorning in a backdoor pilot that wasn’t even written for the SPN 'verse?  that was never going to work.

[#spn meta](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-meta) [#spinoff city](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/spinoff-city)

* * *

[10/26/14](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/101065796994/re-supernatural-and-politics-i-wonder-if-maybe)

 I’d argue that all the nostalgia and apple pie is meant to illustrate that the American Dream of middle-class life is like a soap bubble: pretty and terribly fragile.  It all looks stable, but one disaster - a missed paycheck, a car accident, a fire - and it’s so easy for it all to spiral down to the place where the kids grow up homeless, raising themselves and stealing to eat.  Republicans don’t want to talk about how tenuous it all is.  Republicans do like to pretend that bootstraps and faith-based charity is more than enough to get worthy people back on their feet again.  And SPN gave our heroes real boots, and help from Pastor Jim, and everything still went to hell.  Only thing that got them out was divine intervention.

OOH!  Wait - So, Julia M. Wright’s “Latchkey Hero” ([http://www.genders.org/g47/g47_wright.html](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.genders.org%2Fg47%2Fg47_wright.html&t=YmYxMzNhZDRkOTBjODk1NjY2OTBjZGQ5YmRhNGMwODI3NWZkNmEzMCxNTkpmN3hscw%3D%3D&b=t%3A0uBFBznWrCGtBXYYAWqPPA&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwelkinalauda.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F101065796994%2Fre-supernatural-and-politics-i-wonder-if-maybe&m=1)) posits Dean as standing pat with the working class, Sam as class-climber, and demons as the forces of corporate capitalism.  (Spoiler: everyone sells out to the bosses in the end, one way or another.)

So what if, in the same schema, we cast the angels/Heaven as big government?  They’re not anywhere near as benign as they want you to think… but their grand plan involves everyone getting pie in the sky when they die, while the demons/corporate types just like grinding people down.  And some of the angels sincerely are trying to help the little people.

Hm.  That could work.

[#spn meta](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-meta) [#politics and economics and sociology](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/politics-and-economics-and-sociology) [#oh my](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-my)

* * *

[10/28/14](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/101240271734/dark-glasses-hide-dark-thoughts-i-said) 'Dark glasses hide dark thoughts,' I said.

First shot of the boys this ep?  Dean with black-covered eyes.  Sam’s eyes are black-covered too, though the darkness in his shades isn’t as opaque.

When Dean started needling Sam about Lester, all I could think was,  _no way this boy is cured, for any possible value of ‘cured.’_   Original Flavor Dean might have poked at Sam’s sore spot, but OFD would have eased off at the first sign of resistance, not kept pushing.  This Dean was kinda reminding me of Ruby, actually.

[I’ve been wondering - does Hell  **really**  get Lester’s soul?  There was a contract.  The forces of Hell failed to fulfill their contractual obligations.  Why should Lester still be on the hook for his end?]

There’s a Muriel Spark story, “The Dark Glasses,” all about intentional and imposed blindnesses.  People refusing to see, people being forcibly made to stop looking.  [This is as close to a full copy as I can find on-line](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fbooks.google.com%2Fbooks%3Fid%3DsyKW0g8RFUcC%26pg%3DPA167%26lpg%3DPA167%26dq%3Dmuriel%2Bspark%2Bthe%2Bdark%2Bglasses%26source%3Dbl%26ots%3D6e5Kd-pYLe%26sig%3D5oT6qcce_tMI2hwQ-m7-JrK72EU%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DX%26ei%3De3pQVMumIcWQigLMmICoDg%26ved%3D0CB4Q6AEwAA%23v%3Donepage%26q%3Dmuriel%2520spark%2520the%2520dark%2520glasses%26f%3Dfalse&t=OWE2NzQzYmJmYjBhMTIwZmRlYTA3NTRlMTNjYTA0ZGNlMDQ4MDc1Yyw4M25uRUU0Wg%3D%3D&b=t%3A0uBFBznWrCGtBXYYAWqPPA&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwelkinalauda.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F101240271734%2Fdark-glasses-hide-dark-thoughts-i-said&m=1).  It starts with 

 

> Coming to the edge of the lake we paused to look at our reflections in the water.  It was then that I recognised her from the past, her face looking up from the lake.  She had not stopped talking.
> 
> I put on my dark glasses to shield my eyes from the sun and conceal my recognition from her eyes.
> 
> 'Am I boring you?’ she said.
> 
> 'No, not a  bit, Dr. Gray.’
> 
> 'Sure?’
> 
> It is discouraging to put on sun glasses in the middle of someone’s intimate story.  But they were necessary, now that I had recognised her, and was excited, and could only honourably hear what she had to say from a point of concealment.
> 
> 'Must you wear those glasses?’
> 
> 'Well, yes.  The glare.’
> 
> **'The wearing of dark glasses,’**  she said, 'is a modern psychological phenomenom.  It **signifies the trend toward impersonalisation,**   **the weapon of the modern Inquisitor** , it - ’
> 
> 'There’s a lot in what you say.’ But I did not remove my glasses, for I had not asked for her company in the first place, and there is a limit to what one can listen to with the naked eye.

And here’s our boys, hanging out lakeside in shades, cross-examining each other.  Makes me wonder if someone in the writers’ room has started reading Literature or something.

[#spn meta](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-meta) [#Muriel Spark](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/Muriel-Spark) [#The Dark Glasses](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/The-Dark-Glasses) [#don't masquerade with the guy in shades](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/don%27t-masquerade-with-the-guy-in-shades) [#spn 10x04 Paper Moon](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10x04-Paper-Moon)

* * *

 [10/31/14 ](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/101405868739/multifandom-madnesss-dean-looks-awfully)

Maybe it isn’t monsters he wants to kill right now.

[#spn meta](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-meta) [#spn 10x04 Paper Moon](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10x04-Paper-Moon)

* * *

[11/12/14](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/102438242259/interruptingpanda-messier51-so-at-first-i)

Right, yes:  **Dean**  doesn’t need this thing to tell  **him** how  **he**  feels about his brother… but  _his brother_  does need the thing to tell  _him_  how Dean feels about  _him_.

Also - if Baby is Metaphor!Dean, that was Real!Dean hanging Prop!Amulet around Metaphor!Dean’s Metaphor!Neck.  

[#spn meta](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-meta) [#Meta!awwwww](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/Meta%21awwwww) [#spn 10x05 Fan Fiction](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10x05-Fan-Fiction)

* * *

[11/12/14](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/102515958014/a-robot-named-mary-sue)  **A Robot Named Mary Sue**

**Robbie**  Thompson wrote in a  **robot**  as a minor supporting character.  I do believe that was his self-insert into Fan Fiction.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robby_the_Robot](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FRobby_the_Robot&t=ODAxMWQyYTNlOWRlYzViZTcwNDcyYjVmMmU0YzUyZDBmZWQ0ZmJiMyxFVm1GdjBFaw%3D%3D&b=t%3A0uBFBznWrCGtBXYYAWqPPA&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwelkinalauda.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F102515958014%2Fa-robot-named-mary-sue&m=1)

*

On the meanings of names:

  * Marie: French for Mary.  The author/ creator/ motive force for this story.  Later pressed into service as Sam.  [With Ann Marie from  _Black_ , this is the second Marie this season.]
  * Siobhan: Irish feminine form of John.  Plays Dean.
  * Kristen: Christian.  Plays an angel.
  * Katie: from Katherine, from the Greek for “pure.”  Plays Bobby.  [Second Kate of the season.]
  * Chandler: Candle maker/dealer.  Maker of light, albeit a small and flickering one.  Burning out.



 

> My candle burns at both ends;  
>  It will not last the night;  
>  But ah, my foes, and oh,my friends  
>  It gives a lovely light!   
>  – Edna St. Vincent Millay

“Maeve” means intoxicating.  It feels like that should lead somewhere, but I’m not seeing the path.

*

When Adam got on stage for the family sing, I was happy, because maybe, just maybe, that’s the whack upside the head the boys have needed to go and at least *try* to get their baby brother out of jail.  Kid’s been down there for a couple of eternities now…

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqvp66m2wQM](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dyqvp66m2wQM&t=ODY0ZTQzMTg3MTQ2Yjk3MWE2Yjg3YWEwYzllNDY2MjI0N2U2ZGU1YSxFVm1GdjBFaw%3D%3D&b=t%3A0uBFBznWrCGtBXYYAWqPPA&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwelkinalauda.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F102515958014%2Fa-robot-named-mary-sue&m=1)

*

Dean started pushing back about Marie’s version of the SPNverse, and none of the kids seemed the slightest bit phased that some old guy knew that stuff inside and out, and cared about canon vs. non-canon.  Seemed… odd.  I know they’re kids, and more important, they’re  _putting on a show_ , and as such, they’ve bubbled themselves in with other obsessives to the point where maybe it wouldn’t seem odd that a pair of visiting FBI agents are SPN-cyclopedic, and get snide and argumentative about it.  But still,  _none_  of the kids said, “dude, how do you even care?”

[#spn meta](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-meta) [#Robbie the Robot](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/Robbie-the-Robot) [#The Name Game](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/The-Name-Game) [#I'm just here to get my baby out of jail](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/I%27m-just-here-to-get-my-baby-out-of-jail) [#spn 10x05 Fan Fiction](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10x05-Fan-Fiction)

* * *

[11/18/14](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/102970265249/berrysherlockholmes-subtext-i-wish-someone)

I wish someone who’s better at this than me would pull apart that top clip.  

Marie[Sam] in front of Dean, both wearing the same shirt.

Dean messing with Kristen[Castiel]’s tie.

Kristen[Castiel] almost completely eclipsed by Siobhan[Dean], holding still and letting Dean mess with her neckwear.

Siobhan[Dean] adjusting her own neckwear, standing next to Marie[Sam].

Kristen[Castiel] and Siobhan[Dean] in neat lines with the rest of the cast, facing the house.

Marie[Sam] and Dean downstage, backs to the house/facing the rest of the cast.

[#spn meta](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-meta) [#visual rhetoric](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/visual-rhetoric) [#spn 10x05 Fan Fiction](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10x05-Fan-Fiction)

* * *

[11/19/14](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/103102008589/deansoul-sooo-i-dont-really-write-meta-or)

And he made a point of telling us that it’s made of canvas.  Whether that’s important because it’s a blank canvas, or because they make straight jackets out of canvas, I don’t know.

[#spn meta](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-meta) [#spn 10x06 Ask Jeeves](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10x06-Ask-Jeeves) [#Coat of Many Colors](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/Coat-of-Many-Colors)

* * *

 [11/19/14](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/103105386129/olivia-bobby-dean-azazel)  **Olivia : Bobby :: Dean : Azazel***

 I’m not sure this works, but I’m going to run it up the flagpole anyway:

Several folks have well-made the case for Olivia = Dean already, so I won’t belabor the point.

Bobby killed Olivia’s opposite-sex parent, and was sufficiently menacing that Olivia’s same-sex parent made some unorthdox (and abusive) parenting choices.  

Azazel killed Dean’s opposite-sex parent, and was sufficiently menacing that Dean’s same-sex parent made some unorthdox (and abusive) parenting choices.  

Olivia : Bobby :: Dean : Azazel.

When Bunny Lacroix died, she left the key to her daughter’s prison to Bobby.  But he was already dead, so the key went to his next-of-kin.  Except, the key had already been used.  Bunny’s servant/co-conspirator had already freed Olivia… to clean out the crappers, while someone else was asked to pick out Olivia’s mother’s burial clothes.**  When Olivia proves both self-directed and violent, he locks her up again.  But Dean’s got the key now, so that doesn’t last, and Olivia promptly knifes the butler.

So out in Analogue Projection Land, John dying means the key to his sons’ prison should have gone to Azazel, but he’s dead himself.  Meg is Azazel’s surviving next-of-kin, and as such inherits the key.  But thanks to the machinations of Zachariah Dean’s long since been set loose.  Zachariah tries to control Dean with orders and threats.  That doesn’t work, so Zachariah locks Dean up again in that overdecorated room in a warehouse in Van Nuys - until Dean stabs him.

To recap:

  * Dean = Olivia
  * Bobby = Azazel
  * John = Bunny
  * Dean & Sam = Meg
  * Zachariah = the butler



Oh, and the key, disguised in a cross?

Castiel is the Key.

_____

* Or maybe Olivia : Bobby :: Sam : Azazel? That would work, too.  But I agree with the consensus that Olivia is meant to parallel Dean.***

** In hindsight, knowing Bunny and Olivia’s actual relationship, that was just gratuitously nasty of him.

*** Is this whole season going to be All About Dean?  I’m a DeanGirl from season 1 - hell, I followed Ackles over from  _Dark Angel_  - but the narrative so far seems waaaay out of balance.  I don’t think reducing Sam to a supporting role is a net benefit, long-term.

[#spn meta](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-meta)[#spn 10x06 Ask Jeeves](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10x06-Ask-Jeeves)[#roman a clef](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/roman-a-clef)

* * *

[11/25/14](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/103566179449/larinah-trai-all)

"I remember being at a shoreline, watching a little grey fish heave itself up on the beach and an older brother saying, ‘don’t step on that fish, Castiel. Big plans for that fish.’”

I never felt like that fish really paid off in the storyline.  Maybe this is it?

[#spn meta](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-meta)[#6.20 the man who would be king](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/6.20-the-man-who-would-be-king)[#too many fish in the sea](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/too-many-fish-in-the-sea)

* * *

[11/26/14](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/103648089379/greekedtext-trai-all-larinah)

Dean tells Cole that his dad was a special one-off totally unique monster.  And… really?  Are we sure he wasn’t a natural-type serial killer, rather than something supernatural?  Is ‘Dean tracked and killed Cole’s dad’ what really happened?  Because what Dean fed Cole there sounded like a Just-So story to me.  A way to justify to Cole’s ego that Cole could go home to his wife and kid without having to kill his six-fingered man first.  And it sounded dishwater-weak, too.  Guess it helps to have the script on your side.

Also - in Cole’s memory, murderer!Dean is suspiciously free of bloodstains.  Was that a) accurate, as in, no blood spatter on Dean = Dean didn’t do the killing; b) the distortion of an old memory; or c) a production choice, later echoed in the bloodless scene of Stanton’s decapitation?

[#spn 10x07 Girls Girls Girls](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10x07-Girls-Girls-Girls)[#Unreliable narrators](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/Unreliable-narrators)

* * *

 

[12/6/14 ](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/104531326794/i-immediately-thought-of-ronald-reagan-who) spn 10x09 The Things We Left Behind

Well…

I was a schoolchild in CA when that particular flap happened.  ”Reagan says ketchup is a vegetable” was a sound-bite exaggeration, meant to make Reagan personally responsible for part of Congress’s budget, in an area where they were following a trend-line set in budgets signed by Carter.  So, yeah, there’s degree of falseness and demogoguery to it.

But.  The trend-line was real.  They really were reducing the federal budget for school lunches so that they could fund tax cuts for corporations and rich people.  This was right after Prop 13, too, and the effects of that on the schools had been immediate, noticable, and negative.  Cutting school lunch funding was another, “ **you**  aren’t worth investing in” fuck-you to my age cohort from the world at large. 

So to me that particular sound bite is a reminder of what the ruling kleptocracy has done to me and mine in pursuit of privatizing the profits and socializing the losses, and how the corporate media has made the damage sound trivial and silly.  (And really, when I was a kid they were just getting started screwing everyone else to help the rich - look what they’ve done to the kids after me with student loans.)

I mean, all y’all reading that line as being about the multiplicity of identity, I don’t doubt you’re right enough that’s what they meant by it.  But “ketchup=vegetable” is a thing that’s always pushed my buttons.

[#Scenes from the class war](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/Scenes-from-the-class-war)

* * *

[12/9/14](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/104829144974/faithless) **Faithless**

 

Jimmy left his family  **because**  Castiel promised they’d be taken care of.

Is there a way, shape, or form in which that was true?  Did Castiel do ANYTHING, AT ALL, EVER to take care of Amelia and Claire Novak?  Oh, yeah, he had Sam and Dean get them a car that one time.  ANYTHING ELSE?  NO?

I was thinking Castiel hadn’t even checked in on the Novaks - which was bad enough - and then we find out Claire was praying to him and he IGNORED HER.  He  **knew** , and he just left her to rot anyway.

He lied to Jimmy.  Worse, he bullshitted Jimmy - he didn’t  _care_  whether the promises he made were true or false, as long as he got what he wanted.  And then he did exactly jack shit to make his promises true.  

Truthless, faithless, entirely occupied by pretending that the shortest way to his goal-of-the-moment is the path of righteousness: Castiel and Dean deserve each other.

[#Lying liars who lie](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/Lying-liars-who-lie) [#Castiel is a born Winchester](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/Castiel-is-a-born-Winchester) [#Team Free Will is a bunch of Slytherins](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/Team-Free-Will-is-a-bunch-of-Slytherins) [#spn 10x09 The Things We Left Behind](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10x09-The-Things-We-Left-Behind)

* * *

[12/10/14](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/104851607119/i-know-it-wasnt-blondie) I know it wasn't Blondie

On a lighter note, I’m wondering who that was on stage at CBGB.  I figure it was ‘91 at the very earliest, '96 at the latest.  '94-'95 seem most probable to me.  Which is a time when I was not even listening to the radio, much less tracking the NYC punk scene.

Anybody have an idea who the band might have been?

[#spn 10x09 The Things We Left Behind](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10x09-The-Things-We-Left-Behind)

* * *

[12/10/14 ](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/104904812469/has-anyone-talked-about-claires-tattoo-the-one)

Per Kate Greenaway’s Language of Flowers (1884):

  * Rose:  _Love_
  * Rose, Single:  _Simplicity_
  * Rose, White:  _I am worthy of you_
  * Rosebud, Red:  _Pure and lovely_



There’s about a page and a half of roses in there, and more if you go trolling through the reverse index.  No listing for orange roses, though, because orange roses didn’t exist in 1884.  They’re a 20th century hybrid.  

That red carnation Crowley had, according to Greenaway, means “ _Alas! for my poor heart_.”

[#Kate Greenaway](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/Kate-Greenaway) [#Language of Flowers](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/Language-of-Flowers) [#abuse of reference materials](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/abuse-of-reference-materials) [#spn 10x09 The Things We Left Behind](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10x09-The-Things-We-Left-Behind)

* * *

[12/10/14](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/104908892044/bakasara-two-quick-post-rewatch-things-before-i)

Sam is very much the youngest child.  He was there, and he remembers what happened, but he didn’t  **understand**  what happened at the time.  For the CBGB incident, he’d have been somewhere between eight and thirteen - old enough to remember that time Dad had to drag Dean out of a bar in New York, but not old enough to catch on that Dean had maybe been dosed, nowhere near old enough to get why some stranger would do that to his big brother, far too young for anyone to want to explain it to him.  

At no point does it occur to Sam to go back and re-examine that memory in light of his adult knowledge of the world.  Even when Castiel explicitly describes the CBGB story as Dean being rescued (and Dean accedes to that interpretation), Sam is still reacting as though they’ve just told a fun anecdote about that time Dad had to drag Dean out of a bar in New York. 

It’s not that Sam doesn’t care, or isn’t paying attention.  It’s just, peacekeeping and caretaking and seeing everyone’s point of view - that's  _Dean’s_  role in the Winchester family constellation.  (Sam’s the PITA kid who tries to rebel and ends up overruled by everyone else.)  I’m not sure Sam really ever got why Dean was so upset at the end of  _Dark Side of the Moon_ …  

Which is a problem, because if Sam wants to solve his family’s current problems to his own satisfaction, he’s going to have to start understanding what’s going on in his  brother’s head.

[#SPN 5x16 Dark Side of the Moon](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/SPN-5x16-Dark-Side-of-the-Moon) [#spn 10x09 The Things We Left Behind](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10x09-The-Things-We-Left-Behind) [#the CBGB story](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/the-CBGB-story)

* * *

[12/11/14](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/104993928079/whats-a-child-worth)  **what's a child worth?**

Rowena almost sold her boy Fergus for three pigs.  (I wonder why the deal fell through?)  In the end, though, she just abandoned him.  

Jimmy sold Claire for a pocket full of mumbles: such are promises.

Randy sold Claire for temporary forbearance on the collection of $5000.

Sandy set her price for Claire as being persuaded that Claire would get a proper parent.  Castiel couldn’t meet Sandy’s price, so he stole Claire.  (Claire was worth stealing, but not worth settling in for a long con.  Hell, she wasn’t even worth a few minutes’ forethought on a colorable story.)

Amelia just abandoned Claire.  Or did she?

Mary sold (what turned out to be) Sam for John’s life.

John tossed Sam aside for wanting to go to college.

Dean was a gift with purchase when Mary sold Sam.  John paid for Dean’s life with his own, in the end, but before it got to that John had abandoned him (and Sam), so very many times. John wouldn’t actually let go of his boys, though.  He wouldn’t give them away or sell them - put them under new management, let someone else try to be a proper parent.  (Would’ve been better parenting had he left them with Pastor Jim instead of in all those motels, but maybe a lesser story?)  No, John just kept deserting them and re-appearing at the last minute, over and over.  So I guess the price John set on Dean was “not worth enough to stay around for, worth too much to let go.”

 [#spn meta](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-meta)[#everyone's got a price](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/everyone%27s-got-a-price)[#five pig minimum](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/five-pig-minimum)[#spn 10x09 The Things We Left Behind](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10x09-The-Things-We-Left-Behind)

* * *

[12/14/14](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/105198355984/makes-a-commitment-to-watch-out-for-a-kid-check)

Makes a commitment to watch out for a kid? check

Abandons the kid so he can go off and do More Important Things? check

Ignores the kid’s pleas? check

Shows up, not because of the kid’s pleas, or anything going on in the kid’s life, but prompted by entirely external circumstances? check

Swoops in with dramatic gestures? check

Makes critical remarks about  ~~vegetables~~  what inadequate work the kid is making of raising herself? check

Occasionally swooping in with a dramatic gesture and feeling vaguely guilty about everything in between is as much effort as he’s willing to put into parenting? check

 

It’s official.  Dean is in love with his father.

 [#Castiel's A+ parenting](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/Castiel%27s-A%2B-parenting)[#spn 10x09 The Things We Left Behind](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10x09-The-Things-We-Left-Behind)

 

* * *

[12/16/14](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/105424802214/children-of-adam-children-of-the-corn)

 

Much goodness here.  I think your thesis that corn=people is valid, and the historical details you’ve included are interesting and illuminating.  

One note: crops mentioned in the Bible, while certainly not maize (a New World crop), aren’t necessarily wheat.  Depending on the vintage of the translation and the precise context, ‘corn’ might mean any kind of grain (cereals and legumes), or it might be referring more specifically to coarse grains (legumes).

* * *

[12/18/14](http://welkinalauda.tumblr.com/post/105583754284/the-luckless-lord-sleepsintheimpala-i-was)

Oh my heavens, no.  The first half of most SPN seasons, watched in real time, have felt like those [round](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FNaked_Came_the_Stranger&t=N2YwOGM3NzY1MTkyMWE0NzdiMjQ0MmFkYTYzMGJhOTIwMGExZjg3YSxDdnZhdDhISw%3D%3D&b=t%3A0uBFBznWrCGtBXYYAWqPPA&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwelkinalauda.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F105583754284%2Fthe-luckless-lord-sleepsintheimpala-i-was&m=1)-[robin](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FNaked-Came-Manatee-Carl-Hiaasen%2Fdp%2F0449001245%2Fref%3Dsr_1_1%3Fs%3Dbooks%26ie%3DUTF8%26qid%3D1418964038%26sr%3D1-1%26keywords%3Dnaked%2Bcame%2Bthe%2Bmanatee%26pebp%3D1418964068630&t=OTliMGM3ODYxMzAzZDRhZDNjYzk3MzkyMWJiOTkyNTgwZjc2MDEyMyxDdnZhdDhISw%3D%3D&b=t%3A0uBFBznWrCGtBXYYAWqPPA&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwelkinalauda.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F105583754284%2Fthe-luckless-lord-sleepsintheimpala-i-was&m=1) “[novels](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FThe-Floating-Admiral%2Fdp%2F9350092719%2Fref%3Dsr_1_7%3Fs%3Dbooks%26ie%3DUTF8%26qid%3D1418964235%26sr%3D1-7%26keywords%3Dthe%2Bfloating%2Badmiral&t=NzQzNmU4YWMzNmQ1ZjgzY2NlMzQzODFlYTNjN2YyYjVkZDU5MzM0MixDdnZhdDhISw%3D%3D&b=t%3A0uBFBznWrCGtBXYYAWqPPA&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwelkinalauda.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F105583754284%2Fthe-luckless-lord-sleepsintheimpala-i-was&m=1),” in which most of the alleged fun is that the authors don’t tell each other what they’re doing.  So each chapter after the first is someone trying to make their own creative thing while also trying to figure out wtf the previous writer(s) did and maybe make it all seem like a vaguely coherent whole.  And then the last bit of most SPN seasons has felt rushed, like the crew’s frittered away most of the shift and now they have less than an hour to get through the punchlist before quitting time - and they  _do_ get through it all, but some of it’s pretty slapdash.

My enthusiasm for this season is more qualified than all y'all’s, but I am 100% with you that this season feels like a unified story created by a single guiding intelligence.  It makes a pleasant change.

[#spn season 10](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-season-10) [#naked came the hunter](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/naked-came-the-hunter)


End file.
